Implantable blood pumps provide mechanical circulatory support to patients having a weakened or otherwise compromised heart. Generally, implantable blood pumps include a pumping mechanism to move blood from the heart to the rest of the body. In operation, the blood pump draws blood from a source, such as the right ventricle, left ventricle, right atrium, or left atrium of the patient's heart and impels the blood into an artery, such as the patient's ascending aorta or peripheral artery.
Patients requiring an implantable blood pump typically have underlying heart issues, such as low pulsatility. Generally, pulsatility reflects the heart's contractility and stretch, as well as the volume of blood moved by the heart. As a result of low pulsatility, medical complications can arise, including aortic leaflet fusion, ventricular and systematic thrombosis, unclear perfusion of the peripheral microcirculatory bed due to the issues related to blood flow, and the like.
Typically, Mean Arterial Pressure (“MAP”) is determined in an effort to manage and prevent medical complications. MAP is generally defined as the average pressure in a patient's arteries during one cardiac cycle and may be obtained using a patient's diastolic blood pressure and systolic blood pressure. Unfortunately, it is often difficult to determine MAP in patients having low pulsatility, such as those having the implantable blood pump, because a signal strength of the patient's pulse pressure may be lower than that which is needed for an instrument to detect the patient's pressure limits, such as the diastolic blood pressure and the systolic blood pressure. For example, traditional commercial blood pressure cuffs may be unable to detect the patient's pulse pressure because the pulse signal strength is not strong enough to provide a stable blood pressure reading. As a result, the patient may be exposed to medical complications that may have otherwise been managed or prevented through accurate blood pressure measurements.